Beginners Guide to Brewing Loose Leaf Tea

It is time for tea!

If you have been drinking tea for many years, but you want to make a change in the way you brew your morning cup of tea, you may want to think about using loose leaf tea. While there are no extra complications associated with brewing loose leaf tea, the improvement in flavor and aroma is something that pre-packaged tea bags simply cannot match. When it comes to brewing loose leaf tea, the goal is to not only find the type of tea that you are going to enjoy the most, but to find a brewing method that you can easily replicate multiple times without any fuss.

How to Brew –

After you have chosen your favorite loose leaf tea, it is time to start brewing! The process is very easy and may even bring you a greater level of satisfaction than sticking a tea bag into a cup of hot water. We begin by assessing the ratio of leaves to hot water, which is usually one teaspoon of leaves per cup of water. As you may have noticed, tea bags contain a rather excessive amount of tea leaves, and we rarely use a tea bag more than one time. And it results in a great deal of tea leaf wastage, which you can prevent with the loose leaf brewing method.

Water coming off the boil is probably best for a great cup of tea, and for those who like to be very precise in their measurements, the ideal temperature is usually between 185 F to 220 F, depending on the type of tea you are enjoying. For instance, teas that are lightly oxidized, such as green tea and white tea, are brewed in water that is closer to 185 F in temperature.

However, regular black tea is brewed at a hotter temperature to get the best results.

The amount of time you have to keep the tea leaves inside the water is going to depend on how much caffeine and flavor you want in your tea. If you want a tasty but light tea with a modest amount of caffeine, around three to four minutes of steeping should suffice. But many tea lovers can go as far as eight to ten minutes of steeping, if they are really striving for a strong, bold cup of tea. We advise trying out various times until you get the cup of tea you love the most.

Straining the Tea –

There are a few methods you can use in order to properly strain your cup of hot tea. Tea brewers may use a mesh strainer, which should get out all your loose tea leaves without a problem. But it is also possible to use a paper filter, similar to the ones used for brewing coffee, in order to get absolutely all the little tea leaf bits out of the water. Using a mesh strainer is much quicker, but some may prefer the thorough straining that is achieved with a paper filter.